Search form

You are here

Vermont Sourdough with Increased Whole Grain, from Hamelman's "Bread"

Vermont Sourdough with Increased Whole Grain, from Hamelman's "Bread"

I can't believe six months have gone by since I made Hamelman's Vermont Sourdough with Increased Whole Grains. (See Vermont Sourdough with Increased Whole Grain, from Hamelman's "Bread") I liked it so much the first time, I promised myself I would bake it again soon to see if was consistently so good. So, I forgot about it. I'll blame the NY Baker's test baking pre-occupation of the Summer.

A few days ago, I was thumbing through “Bread,” deciding what to bake this weekend, when I re-discovered this formula. A happy moment.

My second bake of the Vermont Sourdough with Increased Whole Grain confirmed the wonderfulness of this bread and my personal preference for it over the basic Vermont Sourdough.

OVERALL FORMULA

Bread flour

1 lb 11.2 oz.

85.00%

Whole Rye

4.8 oz

15.00%

Water

1 lb 4.8oz

65.00%

Salt

.6 oz

1.90%

TOTAL YIELD

3 lbs 5.4 oz

169.90%

LIQUID LEVAIN BUILD

Bread flour

6.4 oz

100.00%

Water

8 oz

125.00%

Mature culture (liquid)

1.3 oz

20.00%

TOTAL

15.7 oz.

FINAL DOUGH

Bread flour

1lb 8 oz

Whole Rye

4.8 oz

Water

12.8 oz

Liquid levain

14.4 oz

(all less 3 T)

Salt

.6 oz

TOTAL

3 lbs 5.4 oz

METHOD

The night before mixing the final dough, feed the liquid levain as above. Ferment at room temperature overnight.

Mix the final dough. Place all ingredients except the salt in the bowl and mix to a shaggy mass.

Cover the bowl and autolyse for 20-60 minutes.

Sprinkle the salt over the dough and mix using the paddle of a stand mixer for 2 minutes at Speed 1. Add small amounts of water or flour as needed to achieve a medium consistency dough.

Switch to the dough hook and mix at Speed 2 for 6-8 minutes. There should be a coarse window pane.

Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled bowl and ferment for 2.5 hours with one stretch and fold at 1.25 hours.

Divide the dough into two equal parts and form into rounds. Place seam side up on the board.

Cover with plastic and allow the dough to rest for 20-30 minutes.

Form into boules or bâtards and place in bannetons or en couch. Cover well with plasti-crap or place in food safe plastic bags.

Refrigerate for 12-18 hours.

The next day, remove the loaves from the refrigerator.

Pre-heat the oven at 500ºF with a baking stone and steaming apparatus in place.

After 45-60 minutes, pre-steam the oven. Transfer the loaves to a peel. Score them.

Load the loaves onto the stone and pour ½ cup boiling water into the steaming apparatus. Turn the oven down to 460ºF.

After 15 minutes, if you have a convection oven, turn it to convection bake at 435ºF. If you don't, leave the oven at 460ºF. Bake for another 25 minutes.

Remove the loaves to a cooling rack.

Cool completely before slicing.

I got the same crackled, crunchy crust and moist, chewy crumb as I did the first time. The flavor was more assertively sour than I remember, which is fine with me. The overall flavor was delicious. The sourness did not detract from the lovely complex wheat-rye flavor that is my favorite.

This is indeed a wonderful bread, and I promise to not let so much time go by between bakes again! I heartily recommend it to those seeking a “more sour sourdough.”

The only bread of this type I've ever had with a better flavor was cut from a huge miche we bought in Les Eyzies. I do have to factor in that it was eaten with fabulous cheeses and saucissons on the grassy bank of a canel off a country road in La Dordogne. <sigh>

I've been using an old cast iron oblong container I inherited from my aunt that I never knew what to do with until I started baking...somewhere along the line I missed the lava rock tip. I will remedy that this week :-)

Do you have it on the bottom of your oven or on the lowest shelf and what do you use to pour the water into it? I'm thinking one of those long spouted olive oil cans might help get me a little farther away from the blast furnace!

My setup is: Baking stone on the middle shelf. Skillet with lava rocks on the lowest shelf (not on the oven floor). I pour water into a pyrex measuring cup to pour over the lava rocks. DO wear an oven mitt on your pouring hand.

You can use (non-lead-containing, non-galvanized) nuts and bolts or rebar pieces instead of lava rocks.

Finally had a chance to sit down and give your post a proper read through and have a question for you if you don't mind. Later this evening I'll be making Hamelman's Sourdough Seed bread. Like the Vermont Sourdough with increased Whole Grain it uses a liquid levain, which may or may not have a bearing on my question. I noticed in step 4 of your method that you use a paddle to mix at this stage and then switch to the hook for the second speed mixing. Since this isn't indicated in Hamelman's method I'm wondering if this a technique you've used previously or is it one that you learned during your course at SFBI and have incorporated into your mixing procedure. Your results speak for themselves as the crumb on your bread is outstanding , so I'm wondering if this is partially due to using this method. It would seem that you'd get a fairly rapid gluten development in this initial mixing stage by using a paddle, but I'd be interested to know your thoughts on how ..or if it helps you achieve such good crumb on your loaves.

Almost all of Hamelman's mixing instructions assume you are in a commercial bakery and using a spiral mixer with a 20 qt or larger capacity. These mixers only have one (spiral) mixing blade and two speeds (except for those that have one speed).

They are very efficient with their optimal quantity of dough. Hamelman's times are for these mixers. A planetary mixer, like a KitchenAid, will take longer to achieve the same result.

So, Hamelman doesn't discuss the paddle attachment at all. The paddle is good at incorporating ingredients initially, and that's how I use it. It's goal is even distribution of flour and liquid, especially. I don't think it has much of a role in gluten development otherwise.

If you are somehow dissatisfied with the crumb you are getting, you might post your question (with your recipe and photos, if possible), and I bet you will get lots of good advice.

Hamelman calls for a 125% hydration levain. If I have the time, I convert my usual 75% hydration levain to 125% for Hamelman's formulas that call for liquid levain. I also convert it to 50% hydration for his firm levains.

If I don't have time to convert, I just compensate by adding more or less water to my seed starter.

I don't have a big choice in whole rye flours locally. I have used Bob's Red Mill "dark rye" and Arrowhead Mills "whole rye." Both are quite satisfactory. I don't have a preference between these. BTW, I have also used "medium rye flour" from KAF and other nybakers.com in formulas calling for whole rye flour with excellent results.

I am still a bit of a newbie, I have had mixed success with a lot of different recipes (mostly from tartine) that I have tried and am going to try to have the patience to stick to one and work on it to get my technique down. This really fits the bill for what my family likes to eat so maybe I will try my hand at getting this one to really work for me.

I appreciate the advice because I have about 4 rye flours in my freezer and had no idea which to pick!

All original site content copyright 2015 The Fresh Loaf unless stated otherwise. Content posted by community members is their own. The Fresh Loaf is not responsible for community member content. If you see anything inappropriate on the site or have any questions, contact me at floydm at thefreshloaf dot com. This site is powered by Drupal and Mollom. It is part of the Federated Media Publishing - Food channel. Click here for advertising information.